Backporting with git

The easiest way to do a backport from master to a branch is:

$ git checkout 1.6 
  * (you might get a "warning: refname '1.6' is ambiguous", 
  * but this does not matter in this case, IMHO, 
  * as it complains about branch name being a number, I think)
$ git pull
$ git cherry-pick <masters commit number>
$ git push -u origin 1.6
$ git checkout master

The backport commit should be very clean, so nothing else is written to the branch, like comitted fixes and additional NEWS notes in one single commit.

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Please note:

If using $ git checkout origin/branchname, you get into the 'detached HEAD' state mode, which needs you to merge with a temporary branch.

HOW TO GET OUT of 'detached HEAD' state mode:

git checkout -b temp
git checkout temp
git diff master temp
git diff origin/master temp
git branch -f master temp
git checkout master
git branch -d temp